Ever since he was the vicar at a Twin Cities parish, I have admired The Rev. Steve Charleston. A member of the Choctaw nation in Oklahoma, he was a pioneer in developing programs in Native American studies at colleges and seminaries across the country. He went on to be elected Bishop of Alaska (on the first ballot), professor and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts, and recipient of numerous accolades and awards.
He is the best preacher I have ever heard, someone whose authority and faith I accept unquestioningly the minute he begins to speak.
If you are a member of Facebook, I suggest you “friend” him and receive his daily meditations. It is a tremendous gift you can give yourself. Some of his writings are also available in other forms: books, articles, internet.
Here are two excerpts:
“Let me unfurl my sails and make for the open sea. I am not afraid to see the far horizon as my only course. I do not need the crowded land to be my only harbor. I will let the wind chase me over the waves, skimming beneath the cloudless sky, steering through the night by the stars I choose to follow. I will trust my self to be this free for I know that God accepts me just as I am, empowers me as I am made, and will share my joy as I dare to go as far as I can before I reach that distant shore where the light of an endless love will bring me safely home.”
“Here is a prayer for the hollow places, for the hollow people, for the emptiness inside. How often our lives are determined by the need to fill something within us, something stolen away when we were small, something that has long gone missing. So tender is this space we rarely speak of it in public, but shelter down in our souls to hold it hidden. It can make us brittle. It can make us rage or cry or fear. We can seek to fill it with power or pills, drink or drama, but wake more empty than before. Come good Spirit and give us the love that heals the hollow we know but never name.”
See you in church.
Barbara
